I recently attended the Staples Promotional Products Supplier Summit in Overland Park, Kansas. The topic of the conference was the PromoStandards Initiative. This initiative is intended to transform the promotional products industry. According to the PromoStandards website, this is a collaborative effort by suppliers and distributors “to create industry - leading open standards that enables participants to improve the customer experience, reduce transactional friction and effectively execute digital strategy”. In layman terms, the goal is to improve the supplier/distributor experience through digital communication using data to speed up the customer engagement and make the entire process move more expeditiously. This “information highway” for the industry will provide product information, inventory, ordering, order status, pricing, production, tracking and invoicing in a more timely and efficient manner. For those of you familiar with EDI, this will be a very similar platform. EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is the transfer of data from one computer system to another by standardized message formatting, without the need for human intervention. EDI permits multiple companies -- possibly in different countries -- to exchange documents electronically.
Granted, there are instances where the current sales process is painstakingly slow. For example: a client calls a distributor, the distributor searches online or through catalogs for products compatible with their client’s needs, and then makes a few phone calls or emails to a different suppliers or sales reps. Perhaps they have to wait a day or two for a call back regarding pricing, inventory, etc. The purchase order is written up and emailed to the supplier. Maybe it’s after business hours and it gets entered the following day or after the weekend. There can be quite a bit of back and forth before the order finally gets entered into a system and produced. PromoStandards allows automated communication between supplier and distributor for a more effective exchange of goods and services. A web service such as EDI or PromoStandards offers real time computer to computer conversation. There are no phone calls or emails involved and no delays in response.
Alleviating the cumbersome communication between supplier and distributor is certainly a step in the right direction. Are there drawbacks to this type of e-commerce? Yes. We are taking the human interaction out of the equation. What happened to the “art of the deal”? Is negotiation no longer important? What about those relationships that we have developed over the years? Is the phone call a thing of the past? Among some generations it already is! It has been surpassed by email and text messaging.
The goal of the conference was to inform the industry of the technology, which is already out there, to facilitate business and there were several references to the service and efficiency of the “Amazon Experience”.
The conference also offered guest speakers and testimonials from several well-known industry suppliers and distributors. They made the case for PromoStandards very compelling. Prom Standards is certainly leading the charge to transcend the way we currently do business through innovation. The PromoStandards website lists the companies that are “Standard Setting Members” which means they “have dedicated significant resources to setting standards and continue to take input from all companies who have actively implemented any standard”.
If you plan on doing business with Staples Promotional Products, BIC Graphic, SanMar, Geiger, HALO Branded Solutions or Facilis Group, then you will most likely be implementing PromoStandards very soon.
My prediction is that by the end of 2018 PromoStandards will be a household name among the “Top 50” on the supplier or distributor lists.
If you’re interested in finding out more, PromoStandards will host a Workshop at the 2018 PPAI Expo on Monday, January 15th from 10:00 AM - 4:30 PM at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center (Room TBD).
Charlie McGuinness is National Sales Manager for Corporate Division and Wholesale Distribution at MV Sport/Weatherproof & The Game Headwear. This column is inspired by listening, observing and finding something valuable in daily business interactions and life experiences. He can be reached at charliem@wpmv.com.